Yesterday
by modestlobster
Summary: Faramir and Eowyn meet for the first time. Merry -in classic Hobbit fashion- helps Faramir figure her out.


Disclaimer/Author's Note: This fanfic turned out to be an exercise in expanding an existing situation from LOTR, so there are some similarities between this story and the pages I used as a guide, but I do not claim any of Tolkien's work as my own. For legal purposes, I will be redundant and state that I don't own The Lord of the Rings or the characters within it's pages. Also, the song "Yesterday" and it's lyrics are property of The Beatles.   
  
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As Faramir paced silently in the garden of the Houses of Healing he felt that his heart had darkened and, like the ever lasting veil on the sky, was covered in the disease of blackness that descended from Mordor.   
Then, for a few moments, his mind returned to the dreams of his feverish state - the time before Aragorn had brought him back. It had seemed odd to him that he had had only dreams that were, honestly, rather enjoyable. Or perhaps he only remembered the good thoughts and the wearisome ones had abandoned his mind and settled within his heart.   
Faramir blinked a few times and was suddenly very aware that he was not dreaming, but in the present time, and he sighed. "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away..." Then he looked to the dulled grey sky and spoke with resignation, "Now it looks as though they're here to stay."   
He ached to be back under the brilliant blue sky of the Gondor that lingered in his mind, but he knew better than to succumb to wishing - for he knew that reliance on wishful thinking gained nothing. Yet Faramir knew also not to abandon one's hope. For possessing hope is quite different than desiring a wish to come true.   
He looked to the city below and then again up to the dismal overcast sky and, despite the overlying terror, he felt strangely confident and spoke aloud defiantly, "Oh, Venom of Mordor, do not secure your sickening grasp on our firmament. For I believe in Yesterday and I know that, ere you came, there was a blue sky above and, when the last of your taint has faded, a blue sky above again shall be."   
Faramir believed his words did much to renew his strength, and indeed he felt lighter of heart and prepared to stave off the armies of Mordor himself.   
"Lord Faramir," the Warden called, coming towards him. "The Lady Éowyn wishes to speak to you of her discontent."   
Faramir turned to look on her and his strength suddenly left him and turned to pity, and her beauty made his legs weak.   
"Lord," she said, ready for argument, "I do not dispute the fairness of these Healing Houses - indeed, no houses could be fairer. But I cannot stay here living and recovering when my people are out there fighting and dying."   
Faramir bid the Warden leave, then turned back to Éowyn. Again, her beauty astounded him. Stunned him. And he pitied her unhappiness.   
"Suddenly," he thought, as she looked on expectantly, "I'm not half the man I used to be. What does she posses that claims my strength, mind, and heart so completely?"   
She sighed wearily and cast her gaze away from him. "Please, Lord."   
To reclaim the attention of her eyes, he promptly answered, "I would that I could release you from your unwanted idleness, my Lady. I myself am to remain in the keeping of the Warden for many more days and I do not argue his craft, for he certainly knows more of it than I."   
She looked upon him again, for which he was glad, but her melancholy discontent struck at his heart as she spoke.   
"I do not wish to be healed of anything," she said. "Save this caged living. Battle calls to me and I am forbidden to answer!"   
"I know not whether you have oft looked to the heavens of this recent light, but if you had, you would find that, although there is rumor of a sun behind the present unyielding veil, there remains still a shadow hanging over me through which the light can only perversely filter through. The same shadow hangs, too, over you, Lady, and indeed over this land. And it speaks of battle that is coming ever closer to this city. You and I have not the time to reach the war where it stands now, but in time it may reach us. So we must wait."   
She slowly turned her gaze to the ground at her feet. "But I am told by the healers that I must wait seven more days - which, in these times, is a duration that will not pass in an eternity." A single tear fell down her cheek but she continued to speak steadily, "And, in my room, I shall have to lie abed a seven day eternity, unable to watch what news comes from the the east."   
"Unable?" Faramir asked.   
She looked up at him, despondently. "My window does not look eastward."   
Faramir smiled upon the Lady of Rohan and in his heart he wished her happiness and so he said, "This I will do for you: if you remain in the care of the healers for your seven days, I will see to it that the Warden allows you walk in these gardens for an eternity. Here, too, shall I be for ever looking to the east and, in your company, perhaps my health recover all the better."   
"My Lord," she said, as color reclaimed her cheeks briefly, "I see not how my presence should affect your recovery."   
"Would you have me explain my reasoning?"   
"I would."   
"I tell you then that you are beautiful and I wish to see you again ere war reaches us and tarnishes the air."   
She turned away and Faramir imagined it was in disbelief.   
"That is the truth." He continued. "It would heal me to see you under the rumoring sun before the Shadow that lay claim to us once comes again."   
"Understand me, Lord." She said, looking to him again. "I am grateful to you for leave of the grounds. I thank you, but please understand: the Shadow that claimed me once remains my captor and to this day I remain captive. Nonetheless, I will walk in the city by your grace, my Lord."   
Faramir watched silently as she returned to the Houses. When he lost sight of her he looked toward the eastward walls.   
"Alas, my dear brother residing now in the heavens, I ask your forgiveness. I never meant to fall so suddenly into heartache over a woman." Faramir smiled at his folly. "You warned me oft not to, Boromir, but I fear I cannot heed your words in this circumstance. Did you see, brother? I was caught completely off my guard. Oh, but yesterday came suddenly." Faramir shook his head to clear his thoughts. "But what is this I speak? I know not. For it was not yesterday that we spoke together! It is still today!" And he laughed, for it seemed they had been talking for an entire day and more and he felt he had known her a lifetime.   
Then Faramir realized he had been neglecting the easterly lands with his ceaseless watching of the Houses. So he went at last to his chamber and beckoned the Warden come, and the Warden came with knowledge of the Lady Éowyn and told Faramir all he knew.   
Faramir listened to all and wondered if there was more and the Warden suggested conversing with the Halfling who had seen and heard what others had not.   
Meriadoc Brandybuck curiously and happily accepted. (And, after all, who would refuse an invitation from the Steward of the City?)   
When the two - Hobbit of the Shire and brother of Boromir - had shared their own stories and much about Lady Éowyn with each other, Faramir sighed.   
Merry picked up on this. "Lord Faramir, there is one thing you have not told me."   
"And what would that be?"   
"I could not say, and I could not ask, for I do not know." said Merry. "But I think you have left out the flesh of the conversation with Éowyn. And, being a simple Hobbit, I don't know whether the reason was that there simply was not much to say about it or rather you left parts out to entice my natural curiosity or perhaps you did it with hopes that the situation would be overlooked."   
Faramir smiled a little. "Master Brandybuck, it seems you are not as simple as you say. As it was, I meant not to keep things from you. But I was uncertain whether such things would interest you or could be deemed important, so I left them out."   
"Well, you have had my ears for some time now and they are not yet sore, so if you wish to do so, put in the pieces that are missing."   
Faramir recounted the words he had exchanged with Lady Éowyn to the Hobbit and when he finished he sighed again.   
"So," Merry said. "She left without returning or repressing your fondness?"   
Faramir nodded. "She had to leave suddenly, but why she had to go, I don't know. She wouldn't say and I wouldn't ask, but now I would guess I said something wrong. My words must have caused her withdrawal."   
Merry thought for a moment. "This all reminds me of forgotten things I have remembered now about Éowyn."   
Merry spoke then for a time and Faramir came to understand more about the Lady of Rohan than what the Halfling's words initially conveyed.   
"Now I long for yesterday." Faramir said suddenly.   
Merry wondered at his anguish. "Why, my Lord?"   
"Had I been bestowed with this knowledge yesterday, this day could have been different."   
"In the Shire, we say: 'Friend, if What-ifs and Could-have-beens amounted to anything much, we could go down to the pub and buy everyone a pint.'"   
Faramir stood up and smiled again. "Perhaps there is great wisdom in a Hobbit's simplicity."   
Merry stood and bowed as Faramir turned to leave. "But then, perhaps we are not as simple as we say."   
Merry rubbed his hands together and looked about himself, unsure of what to do with the few hours of light remaining.   
Éowyn stepped out of the partially opened closet that she had stowed away in. It was curiosity, not vanity or deception, that had driven her to standing for hours surrounded by neatly stacked bed linens.   
She had heard the majority of the conversation between the Man and the Hobbit and when Faramir had finally left she watched him from the safety of the dark closet. Now, sensing that the danger of being caught was over, she sank into a chair in the room adjacent to her closet. Éowyn could see that the door to the Halfling's room was closed and it sounded like he was asleep. She sighed and let her head rest against the wall. Sighing again, she spoke to herself, "Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play."   
Éowyn suddenly found herself in her memories.   
She was meeting Aragorn for the first time. He was tall, and wisdom and power flowed through him whispering of his birthright to the throne of great kings, all of whom he would surpass in greatness. That first meeting was just a mere look - an exchanged glance - and then she left before she lost herself to the depth of his eyes.   
Then she was offering wine from her father Theoden's cup to the guests - first to Aragorn and then to his companions. Their hands had met briefly.   
"Why?" she said aloud to herself now. "Why did such a touch go through my mind and body as something more than innocent?"   
She had tried to demerit her reaction, saying, "Hail Aragorn son of Arathorn!" and he had answered with "Hail Lady of Rohan!" but he had changed and would not smile.   
This moved the Lady Éowyn to tears now.   
"It meant nothing and it was foolish of me to think otherwise! How that memory shames me now. A King does not want a giddy child for a bride. But I am not a giddy child! Does no one understand this?"   
She looked at the tears on her hands in disgust and wiped the rest from her face. "Only a child cries over a boy, and I will not be a child."   
But the memory returned, and though she wished it gone, it would not go. "Had that never happened, things would have turned in another direction. But it has happened, and now I need a place to hide away."   
"Oh!" she continued. "I believe in yesterday when Shadow held my hand. For Shadow showed me not these memories, but things much different." She sat and thought. "Maybe with more time, the Shadow would have also betrayed my self with my mind and the blackness would have been more cruel with my memories than I."   
She heard a noise come from the Halfling's room, and she imagined he had been asleep and just woke up (rather noisily, perhaps), so she busied herself, pretending to take great interest in the contents of the familiar linen closet. She heard the Hobbit leave his room and dart off and she wondered where Meriadoc Brandybuck was going in such a rush.   
The closet reminded her of what she had heard earlier. Something about the last part of the conversation had struck her.   
'She had to leave suddenly,' he had said, 'Why she had to go, I don't know, she wouldn't say.'   
Had she said, her answer would have been that she was not prepared for his kind words and even wished them unsaid - coming from the mouth of another who was not Aragorn was not something she desired.   
So, without answering his affections, she left to wonder on the Steward in solitude. It was then that she realized that the most affection Aragorn had shown her was a kiss on the hand after denying her come with him into peril and away from her cage in Rohan. He had denied her freedom and she knew not the extent that it had pained him to do so. But Faramir had told her she was beautiful and he was a stranger to her, though circumstance had cast them together. And when she had thought on this a while longer she felt sick and looked for a distraction and that is when she found Halfling and Man speaking together.   
And then Faramir had guessed, 'I said something wrong.'   
And Éowyn wanted to cry out to him that he had made no mistake.   
And then Faramir had said, "Now I long for yesterday."   
And now Éowyn wanted to say, "Think to today, Faramir." But suddenly her heart was chilled and a shadowed claw tore at her and her thoughts turned to anguish again and she could think no more of Faramir until the morrow and so she tormented herself with thought of Aragorn until she reached her room and night fell.   
But Éowyn had guessed wrong about the Halfling. Indeed, how could one find sleep when there were Lords and Ladies to pair together and secrets to overhear? Meriadoc Brandybuck did not sleep on the job.   
Unless the job was sleeping.   
Merry had heard everything that Lady Éowyn said and had hurried out after he had perhaps given away his location and purpose. He felt rather mischievous as he sought out Lord Faramir without explanation and he found that he missed Pippin, for he had for ever been Merry's accomplice.   
He suddenly stumbled over Faramir who had nearly nodded off under a tree.   
"Hello! I beg your pardon, my Lord." Merry smiled and sat next to his friend under the tree.   
Faramir stretched and smiled back. "A little preoccupied, Meriadoc?"   
"Just thinking about my friends."   
Faramir nodded. "I cannot tell what tidings the East Winds bring us, but I hope your friends bide well, Master Brandybuck."   
"Me too." said Merry quietly. "Me too."   
It was then that Merry remembered his purpose. "As long as we are speaking of easterly tidings, I chanced to overhear some of the Lady Éowyn's musings."   
"Oh?" said Faramir with feigned indifference.   
"Well, she said a lot of things. She referred to 'yesterday' a lot, and, umm, well, she said that 'love was such an easy game to play' and then she was quiet a while and then she argued with herself and, well, let me think now..."   
Faramir listened intently and was quite amused with the Halfling's manner of recounting the story.   
"I am not really sure what she was talking about, but she said, 'It has happened, and now I need a place to hide away.' I hope you can make some sense out of this, but I could not hear her thoughts as hear her talk."   
"That's all right Meriadoc. Did she say anything else?"   
Merry thought for a moment. "Oh! That's right. She said: 'I believe in yesterday, when Shadow held my hand.' And she argued with herself whether her memories would have been better suited in the hands of the darkness."   
"And did reason come to her then?"   
"Well, I think so, Lord Faramir, but, I have to admit that at that time I lost my balance on my perch near the door so I made a bit of a noise." Merry smiled sheepishly.   
"Only a bit, Master Perian?"   
"Well, I only upset a potted plant and tripped over a set of clothes and knocked a couple books off a shelf."   
"Ah, well, that's not so bad." Faramir laughed. "I don't suppose Éowyn said much after that."   
"Well, after I righted the pot, piled the clothes, and stacked the books as quick as I could, I bolted out the door as fast a Hobbit can and I came to find you."   
"I thank you, Meriadoc, for the information you have provided. Let us walk, and we shall see if reason did come to Éowyn tonight."   
Together they got up and walked through the midst of the garden and deemed it a fair evening to spend in such company and they awaited the Lady of Rohan.   
But that fair evening never saw the Lady Éowyn.   
When the morning came, so came Éowyn to the gardens and Faramir was there and saw her and wondered about yesterday.   
But she, clad in white, with beauty immeasurable, drove any disappointment away. She accompanied him both in silence and conversation, in walking and resting. And so for a while they sat thus, and in their silence, Faramir sighed in content. And the Lady Éowyn looked on him, and he understood her look, and she understood his happiness and both Éowyn and Faramir enjoyed the moment for what it was and not what it could have been.   
And neither was troubled with Yesterday.   
  
  



End file.
